To get straight to the point, I was hoping that To A T would have more to it. From the mind of Keita Takahashi, the creator of Katamari Damacy and Wattam, it promised to be a cozy narrative adventure about a child who has to live their life shaped like a letter T. As a premise it sounds wonderful: Having to navigate through school and social situations as an awkward T-shaped teen with the vivid creativity that Takahashi is known for. Sadly To A T failed to truly connect with me as it falls into repetitive tropes with uninviting side-activities and a cozy style that became more distracting than breezy.

In To A T you play as Teen, a recently turned 13 year old who has their upper body permanently stuck in the shape of a T. With arms spread thus, daily activities from getting dressed, eating meals and participating in activities become a lot more difficult. However, Teen is rarely distraught by their situation, and supported by their dog Ed you control their posture and movement in a series of connected minigames. The story is very low stakes, but as a strange event happens at school, Teen makes friends and sets out to explore their little town.

This is one of the most colorful games I’ve seen in quite some time. It has Takahashi’s signature style with round shapes, expressive characters and a lovely mix of humans, animals and everything in between co-existing. Whether you go through the morning routines of getting dressed, eating your breakfast and cleaning your face, or simply dash straight off to school, that charm oozes out of every scene. The game can best be described as a series of anime shorts. Every episode sees Teen exploring a different part of town or having to use their T-shaped powers in inventive ways. That sense of direct control over the body is truly the most fun of the game. Minigames aren’t difficult, but use the game's mechanics in surprising ways. Whether you are twisting your limbs to combine liquids into a beaker or racing against a train by running as fast as you can. Your outstretched arms always making the task at hand a bit more complicated. There are also collectibles everywhere and you can purchase new outfits to customize Teen as you see fit. The musical interludes are very catchy even if they pop-up a bit too often for my taste.

However, all those colors and cutesy dialogue became grating to me over time. Especially if you try to follow along with the story and have to move from classroom to classroom, changing out of your indoor shoes to running shoes at designated points or by navigating through the town in a pretty slow and linear fashion. I get where the designers are coming from–truly embodying the everyday challenge that someone with a physical disability has to endure. And while that is commendable, it does make for some really repetitive gameplay. The narrative hooks are pretty predictable and at times the game seems designed for a much younger audience. But even then I think that younger players will not find as much to enjoy here aside from the pretty colors.

We also need to talk about the Nintendo Switch 2 version and the performance. For an indie game that has launched on all systems, this game runs inconsistent and at times abysmal on Switch 2. Framerate slowdown occurs often, especially with multiple characters on screen. It seeps down into the slowdown of menus and interfaces like text boxes, overlapping and even interrupting one another. For a platform that I’ve played far more demanding indie games on, even from publisher Annapurna Interactive, I was pretty shocked by how badly optimized To a T is. It doesn’t help when the gameplay is already slow and then you may also have to deal with performance issues on top of that.

To A T was for me nothing short of a disappointment. I was expecting a fun and colorful story from the creative mind of the creator of Katamari Damacy. And while it may be unfair to put those expectations on a game with a wildly different approach to game design, the choices made here are more of a detriment to the design. A segmented, slow and repetitive story is even more kneecapped by inconsistent performance on Nintendo Switch 2. By the end I was left disappointed because all the ingredients and potential was there. Maybe the colorful visual style and cozy, slowed-down gameplay is exactly what you may be looking for. But to me To a T is not something I care to see again.